Package processing service companies, for example the USPS, process many different types of articles in their facilities. After local (in plant) processing (sorting), the mail needs to be routed to its next destination. Routing the mail to its next destination usually entails at least over the road travel, but usually a more common occurrence requires a combination of air and over the road shipping. Due to the competitive nature of the shipping industry, time is of the essence. The time critical nature of mail delivery is one of the most important factors the USPS and its competitors face other than delivery accuracy. After the flats and letter sortation processing occurs, the aggregate mail trays need to be dispatched to their next destination with speed and accuracy. The USPS uses over the road containers to ship bulk amounts of mail. These over the road containers are designed to handle certain types of mail trays. Due to this fact, mail streams need to be separated for efficient processing. A divert action needs to be made upstream of the dispatch conveyor system in order to process flats tubs in one mail stream and all other letter trays in another mail stream. In order to make this divert action, a divert decision needs to be made based on information and characteristics of the mail stream gathered by the mail article profiler. The type of article needs to be determined to correctly divert it in the mail stream for efficient processing.
In the past, this type of mail processing was done manually by human intervention, or by extra conveyor lines in order to keep the mail streams separate, making the task expensive, labor intensive and overall inefficient.